


untold

by Liu



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crushes, Kendra died instead of Carter, M/M, Old West, Pining, Sheriff Ray, getting stranded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-05-17
Packaged: 2018-06-09 02:26:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6885406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ray, Carter and Sara get stranded in Salvation, 1878, Ray definitely doesn't expect to develop a bond with Carter - who is still heartbroken over Kendra's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	untold

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt fill for farflungstars on tumblr: 'a kiss that was never given'. I was given free choice of a pairing, so I chose the one that has been in my head ever since I had a dream about them. This ship probably makes zero sense but I couldn't resist XD

 

1878 turns out to be no fun at all, after Ray is stuck with the role of a Sheriff in a town that doesn’t particularly want to be protected. Ray refuses to give up hope, but Sara, unhappy with the role of a pretend-wife, is quite skeptical from day one. He’s still hopeful, even after Sara tells him he’s naive two days in, and then takes a horse and disappears in the sunset.

Carter is quiet, like he usually is these days, ever since Savage murdered Kendra in front of their eyes, but at least he’s not screaming at Ray to stop trusting in their friends, so Ray will take the small mercy while he can.

None of them know why the Waverider left without them and they don’t exactly have the means to do anything about it; Ray’s suit is tucked away on the time ship and without it, any possible alterations he could’ve made to his tech in order to make it act like a beacon for their crew stay tucked away in his head, for him to obsess about in the long days of fighting Old West crime.

And the days are _long_ , in here. Ray has spent the better part of his life around technology, and he is accustomed to various gadgets and devices helping people manage their lives. The small town in the middle of nowhere seems to be much more set on basic survival, and Ray quickly feels out of depth with the problems he could’ve solved easily in 2016, and now, he can’t. There’s no way to Google what to do when he needs the advice - there are no antibiotics to hand out when someone’s dying of a simple infection. The days are long, but time seems to be moving faster anyway - it’s like the days have forty, fifty hours each, all of a sudden. 

Ray always comes home tired, ready to collapse into his bed; a couple of weeks in, his mind forgets to rebel against calling the tiny apartment above the Sheriff’s station ‘home’. It’s just a room, really, and Ray has stayed in hotel suites that had bathrooms larger than this, but it’s got a bed and a pillow and a roof, and that’s as good as he can do in this tiny town.

It’s got Carter, too - that is, when Carter isn’t busy drinking himself blind in the saloon. More often than not, Ray locks up the Sheriff’s station behind himself and follows the wide, dusty street to the local watering hole only to find Carter already throwing punches or demanding another shot of whatever piss passes for alcohol in this place. Ray drags him away every time: he tells the people it’s his authority to take the troublemaker, and that Carter will sober up in a cell, but he never makes good on that promise. He pulls Carter up the rickety stairs, through the shadows of the Sheriff’s station, deflecting insults and weak swipes of uncoordinated limbs. He drops Carter onto the bed, the only one they have, and gets the man a glass of water. 

More often than not, Ray sits by Carter’s side, trying to decide whether he should or shouldn’t look when Carter starts sobbing, quietly and desperately, like his world has already ended and it doesn’t matter where or when they are, because his unhappy ending has been written in 1978, when Vandal Savage ran a dagger through Kendra’s heart.

Days and weeks drag on and Ray keeps missing the everyday things he never paid much attention to. A shower. A clean shirt - underwear, now that he’s thinking about it. Streets that don’t smell like piss when sun rises high at noon; people he can talk to without fear of putting his foot in his mouth with an expression that has not been coined in this era. He could have that last one, if Carter only got a grip, but Ray remembers how it felt when Anna died and he doesn’t have the heart to give Carter the intervention he obviously needs. Ray keeps telling himself that they will be rescued, surely, any day, but even his hope is dwindling by the time two months pass without any sign of the Waverider anywhere close. And Ray knows - Ray rides out every couple of days, under the pretense of checking for bandits or poachers or cattle thieves, and looks for places where a time ship could have landed. 

He’s got a beard now, and it’s itchy and uncomfortable and irritating. He keeps scratching at his cheeks, which ends up making it worse, but he can’t really stop, in the sweltering heat that makes dust stick to every surface.

“Why don’t you shave?” 

The question startles him so badly his chair wobbles on the two unsteady legs he’s been balancing on, and he nearly topples to the ground. Ray doesn’t think that the badass Sheriffs of the old movies would’ve reacted so poorly, but he has nearly forgotten how Carter’s voice sounded without a drunkard’s slur. 

Ray looks up, at the narrow staircase leading up to his tiny bedroom, and finds Carter leaning against the wooden railing. His once white undershirt is stained with old sweat and dust, and his pants definitely ride lower on his hips than they have ten weeks ago when they first arrived. Ray guesses that Carter hasn’t been eating much - the shadows and angles of his face seem more prominent now that Ray knows what to look for, and his eyes are bloodshot and tired, but he looks sober. He looks… nearly himself, as he was before everything went to shit, and Ray’s heart leaps at the thought that maybe, for just a moment, he’s not stuck in this tiny town alone. 

“Carter,” he breathes, worried that he will somehow startle the man away, back into his drunken stupor - but Carter just pushes away from the railing and descends those last two steps, slowly, like he’s being careful with his every move. After the way he looked yesterday evening, Ray wouldn’t be surprised if Carter had a horrible hangover - but then, he also wouldn’t be surprised if Carter already stopped caring about feeling physically bad.

“Why don’t you shave?” Carter repeats, hands in his pockets and looking entirely too at ease with where he is, considering his usual antics. Ray swallows - it occurs to him that Carter might have lived in a place like this once, that it’s not as foreign to him as it is to Ray, a boyish fantasy turned all too real. And the loneliness rears its head again when he thinks back to the times when Carter could have helped, when Carter could’ve answered some of the questions that Ray had - except Carter was busy drinking his grief away. Ray feels selfish for thinking like that, but there’s a scream lodged in his chest that has been growing behind his ribs ever since Sara left. _You’re the only one I have here and you left me, even though you sleep next to me every night_.

“I tried, but I almost slit my own throat,” Ray shrugs, redirecting his thoughts to his beard. He scratches at his chin, absently, and only Carter’s touch stops the movement.

“The town has a barber, you know.”

“Yeah,” Ray sighs, “he can hardly take a drink without spilling it... I’m definitely not trusting _him_ with sharp objects near my neck. Then again I don’t trust _myself_  with sharp objects near my neck either... which explains the beard.” 

Carter seems to consider this for a moment, and eventually, he turns back to the stairs. Ray thinks that his luck has run out, and he quietly berates himself for not using Carter’s rare lucid moments to ask some important questions, make a conversation about something else than shaving - but then Carter shoots him a look over his shoulder and motions with his head:

“Come on, then. I’ll show you how.”

Ray hesitates only for a second - he probably shouldn’t leave his office, just in case someone needs him, but the last week has been slow and after all, it’s not like he’s going far. If someone comes shouting for him, he’ll hear it upstairs; with that in mind, he pushes off his chair and follows Carter to their tiny shared space.

Carter’s already rolled out the hellish instruments on the small table underneath the window - the razor still scares Ray, even though the nicks on his skin have already healed from the last time he tried to figure out how to use it. 

“Sit,” Carter commands, and Ray folds his body onto the only chair they have - it’s hard and unbalanced, but Ray’s been sitting on similar ones for weeks now and he’s becoming used to the discomfort.

“Now what?” he smiles up - the odd pressure in his chest intensifies when Carter looks at him, thoughtful and a little confused, as if he’s trying to decipher Ray’s light-hearted tone and uncover something dark and deep buried underneath. Ray has a feeling that’s how Carter works, in general: taking things and turning them over until he finds some dark spot, something that makes sense for someone who has been murdered dozens, hundreds of times. 

And despite all that darkness, he stands here in this old room and Ray feels humbled, looking up at him, his eyes, his hair, even his skin gleaming gold in the light filtering through the dirty windowpanes. He truly looks like an ancient god, even in his dirty shirt and stained pants, regal and quiet, and Ray feels like he’s in a museum, where he isn’t allowed to touch the works of art.

“Now, keep quiet,” Carter answers eventually - and Ray does, drinking in the sight of the man who is unaware of how striking he looks, concentrated on the small bowl in one hand and the shaving brush in the other, working up a lather like he can save the world with a good shave. He looks... serene, almost, in a way he hasn’t been in weeks, _months_  - maybe ever, not that Ray knew him well before all this. Not that he knows him well even now, Ray’s mind supplies: the wave of regret that sweeps over him is surprisingly powerful. 

“I get it,” he says quietly, and only the minuscule tension in Carter’s shoulders tells him that he even heard. It doesn’t look like a clear signal to stop, so Ray presses on, even though he knows he could shatter this fragile peace. “I’m not pretending to know how it feels to be bound to someone for centuries, obviously, but... once, I had a fiancée. I loved her, and I thought we were soulmates, whatever that even meant for me then. So I know how it feels, to lose someone you care about, and... I’m sorry.”

Carter has stopped swirling the brush in the bowl sometime during Ray’s little speech - he’s completely still, like a statue, or like the world goes still right before something awful happens. Ray counts down to the explosion - but instead, Carter’s throat moves as he swallows, so hard that Ray can hear it, and his shoulders sag, as if he was holding himself up by sheer willpower and his strings have now been cut.

“I don’t know who I am, without her,” Carter mumbles, twisting the brush in the bowl again. On instinct, Ray reaches out, and it feels a little like sacrilege, like grabbing Michelangelo’s David with sugar-sticky chubby fingers while the teacher isn’t looking. But Carter’s hand is warm under Ray’s touch, alive if a little tense, and it’s hard not to smile at how startled Carter looks after the simple gesture.

“How about you take this time to figure it out, then?” Ray says softly - he doesn’t want to push Carter, but his drinking and brawling is helping neither of them and he has a feeling that Carter can do much better for the town, for Ray, and for himself.

When Carter inclines his head, barely half an inch, Ray’s not even sure if he can take it as a nod, if the other man’s agreement is solid or just a way to shake off Ray’s prying, but it feels like a victory nonetheless. 

“Off with the shirt,” Carter orders, and for a second Ray’s stomach flips wildly, until he realizes it’s likely so that Carter can get to his neck without staining his collar with soap. Ray dutifully slides his tie off and Carter follows the motion with a raised eyebrow.

“I’ll have to teach you how to tie it properly, too,” he comments and Ray can’t help but smile. A Carter who teaches him how to function in the 19th century is a Carter he definitely wants to meet.

The first drag of that brush over his face is a shock, the soap cold in the oppressive heat of the day and Ray lets out an involuntary gasp, which ends up with him getting some soap in his mouth. Carter smirks as Ray coughs, and it’s a nice change, to see his face doing something else than an unhappy scowl or some drunken rage. 

“Keep your mouth shut,” Carter says, but it comes out almost gentle, and Ray obeys, focusing on the smooth caress of soapy bristles over his skin. He doesn’t know how long that goes on, but it’s definitely longer than when Ray did this himself (or tried to) - in a couple of minutes, or maybe in one long, drawn-out moment, Ray’s eyes nearly start falling closed on their own. Despite the hard chair, he’s feeling relaxed, and when Carter pulls the brush away, Ray finds himself missing the gentle touch. He must make a sound, somehow, even though he doesn’t realize it, because Carter raises an eyebrow at him and chuckles:

“Feel free to close your eyes. Just don’t fall asleep or I could cut you by accident if you startle.”

Ray nods in acknowledgement, feeling like his bones have turned to liquid and he has lost his ability to speak in words. He should be worried when Carter picks up the razor - after all, Carter has been spending his time getting drunk and that can make a hand far from steady - but he finds that he trusts the guy anyway. His eyes do fall closed, in the end, a reflex when a sharp object approaches his cheek, and he makes a conscious effort to stay still: but soon, he relaxes a little. 

The scrape of the sharp razor is a weirdly soothing sound, and mixed together with the rhythm of their breathing, with the distant sounds of horses outside, it brings Ray to an almost meditative state. It feels intimate, to open his eyes and see Carter so completely focused on him, careful but swift, getting rid of Ray’s horrible beard with practiced moves. Ray wonders if Carter ever shaved this way in this lifetime, or if it’s just memories guiding his hands; he resolves to ask, and promptly forgets about it.

Occasionally, Carter’s fingers brush across Ray’s skin, testing for smoothness or tilting his head this way and that. Ray has to take a deep, steadying breath here and there, because Carter’s touch sends tingles down his spine that are inexplicable and thrilling and a bit weird, in that Ray wasn’t expecting this, not here, not with Carter, and his languid, relaxed state slowly turns into agitation. He shouldn’t be feeling like this - but he has been so lonely that maybe his body is only reacting to the first gentle, intimate touch it has felt in months. Yes, Ray decides to go with that and not think about it further.

Not even when Carter takes a towel and wipes off the rest of the soap, then slips a hand up Ray’s neck, thumb stroking across Ray’s cheek. It could probably still be taken as Carter testing the quality of his work... but somehow, Ray doesn’t think that’s the case.

Carter’s eyes flicker up to Ray’s gaze and Ray can see the exact moment Carter realizes he’s doing something he probably shouldn’t be - his eyes widen, just a fraction, and he drops his hand from Ray’s face as if burned. With a cough, he turns away, and Ray gives him this, gives him space and silence and no questions asked, because he himself isn’t sure if he’s ready to ask.

“Thanks,” he says, eventually, after he has put his shirt back on and made another lame attempt with his tie. The material is different from the ties Ray has known, the width not quite the same, and it messes his coordination enough that the knot ends up crooked, again. 

He can see Carter glancing at his neck before he leaves - the man doesn’t offer help, and Ray doesn’t push the matter.

...

Ray fully expects things to get weird between them, Carter going back to his binge drinking and binge brawling, ignoring Ray and forgetting the moment they shared.

But a couple of hours later, Carter shows up downstairs in Ray’s office, vest buttoned up and a tie knotted in a symmetrical way that probably comes with centuries of practice. He’s looking almost presentable: there are still dark shadows under his eyes and a bit of a haunted look around him, hence the ‘almost’, but he doesn’t reek of cheap alcohol anymore. 

Ray smiles at the sight, and Carter, tentatively, smiles back.

“Though you could use some help with law enforcement,” he says, and it feels like he’s testing the waters, but for what, Ray doesn’t know. He lets his feet drop from his desk anyway and leans forward, still smiling:

“You have any experience with that? Don’t tell me you used to be a Sheriff too.”

Now that would be... actually, that would be pretty great in Ray’s opinion: having an actual Sheriff tell him what to do based on real experience instead of John Wayne movies could be a great help. 

To his great disappointment, Carter shakes his head:

“No. Not a Sheriff. I got some special ops training in my past life, if that helps?”

“Really?” Ray blinks - he never really asked Carter about any of his past lives, never thought about them in any other terms than ‘that other time Carter became a winged warrior hawk-thing and fought Savage’. But now, he wonders just how many different ‘Carters’ have been out there - how many different beginnings to a story that ultimately ended the same, two hundred times. And curiosity burns in the back of his throat, in his chest, all the way down to his fingertips, urging him to ask.

But before he can, Carter pulls a chair to Ray’s desk, nods... and starts talking.

...

Ray gasps and tries to take deep breaths to get over the pain, but it’s not subsiding, and Ray really, really wishes they were back in a time where painkillers are a thing.

“Fuck,” he hears a hiss above him, and something about how there’s no hope - Ray’s stomach would jump if it wasn’t already pretty queasy, and he wants to ask, but it takes too much strength.

“Get out of the way!” a familiar voice barks and Ray wants to tell Carter that it’s gonna be fine, somehow, but then Carter’s voice is commanding people to bring him various things that Ray can’t decipher. Ray’s consciousness slips, for a moment, and he wakes up to small slaps to his cheek (freshly shaved, just last morning, courtesy of Carter again).

“-ay! Dammit, Ray, wake up, the bullet’s out, you hear me? You’re gonna be okay. Just wake-... thank god.”

Ray must have blinked his eyes open somewhere during Carter’s speech - he doesn’t understand how he got from the grassy ground behind the town into a bed, but his shirt is gone, there’s a bandage wound tight all around his torso, and the pain in his stomach and side isn’t as bad as it was before.

It’s still pretty bad, though - Ray hisses when he tries to move, and Carter chuckles above him:

“Welcome to the land of the living. Tea?”

“No, thanks,” Ray croaks, his throat parched, but even thinking about drinking makes his stomach turn.

“It’s got opium,” Carter advertises, and Ray decides that maybe he can try a bit. Carter holds the cup to his lips, and when Ray nearly chokes on the lukewarm liquid, he even wipes away what Ray accidentally spilled down his chin.

“Thanks,” he repeats, and only then does Carter come a bit into focus. He looks tired, rumpled, and there are brownish-red stains down the front of his shirt and at the edges of his rolled-up sleeves. Ray has a vague memory of Carter shouting at people to bring him a boiled knife, and he swallows, raising an eyebrow.

“Did you just... cut a bullet out of me?”

“About twelve hours ago, but yes,” Carter shrugs. Ray blinks, again.

“Didn’t know you were a doctor.”

“Field surgeon, World War I.”

When Ray gives him a skeptical look, Carter huffs and slaps his thigh through the thick fabric of the woolen comforter. “Don’t give me that face, it’s still better than what 1878 can provide. I got the bullet out and you’re still breathing, after all.”

Ray considers this, but his thoughts are getting all muddled up, no doubt courtesy of the opium. Or maybe the bloodloss. Or both.

“Remind me... to say ‘thank you’ properly,” he mutters as he drifts off. He thinks that he feels fingers combing through his hair, but he’s not sure and anyway, it feels nice, so he doesn’t comment and just lets the caress carry him to sleep.

...

Carter’s been drinking.

It’s fine this time, at least Ray thinks it is, because he’s not drinking alone and in grief again. They’ve been celebrating - the whole town is cheering, because the bandits have been driven away, with help of Carter’s knowledge of this time and Ray’s... well, Ray’s sheer luck, mostly. But he’s feeling good about himself, about their stay here - he’s feeling like maybe, their lives matter to the people around them, even if they’re people who have been long dead by the time Ray was even born. 

It’s a strange sort of paradox, and it makes Ray giggle loudly as they traipse through the dark town. There are no streetlights, and Ray thinks that’s funny, too, even if it means he stumbles every other step and leans heavily into Carter’s side. Tonight, they’re heroes, and they should enjoy that while it lasts, with all it entails, even if it means their heads will hurt like hell tomorrow.

“Right,” Carter says, sounding a bit amused and a little put-upon. He drags Ray through the dark station, up the stairs that keep running away under Ray’s feet as he wonders if he has been talking aloud.

“Yes, you have.”

Oh. Alright. That explains the sudden telepathy. Carter chuckles at his side, and Ray chuckles with him, because he doesn’t occasionally mind being the butt of a joke, especially if he walked into it on his own. He chuckles and chuckles and lets his forehead rest on Carter’s shoulder while Carter is busy pushing the door to their room open. Their room - the thought tingles in Ray’s brain, in his stomach, and it’s not a bad feeling at all. Carter’s all warmth and strength and he smells a little like a horse, but a lot like _Carter_  and Ray has come to know all of that as ‘home’, in the past twenty-one months. He can’t believe it’s been this long - he can’t believe that after all this time, after all the days he spent trying to persuade Carter that they will get out of here and avenge Kendra’s death by defeating Savage... that after all this time, Ray doesn’t want to leave this place anymore.

“You don’t mean that.”

He lifts his head, and Carter’s looking at him, eyes glinting in the shadows of the room, arm around Ray’s waist, supporting his heavy, drunk weight. 

“I... don’t know,” Ray mumbles, because he’s really not sure: for a while there, pressed close to Carter and riding the high of their success, he wished they could stay forever. “Maybe?”

Carter looks at him until it feels like the world is shifting, and Ray can’t draw his eyes away no matter how hard he tries. Carter holds him close, but he doesn’t move _closer_  and Ray feels every inch between them like a physical ache. Carter’s gaze drops to Ray’s lips, just briefly, but he’s not imagining it - this thing between them has been building for a while, maybe ever since Carter offered that first shave, quiet comfort becoming more and more until it filled every crack, every empty space and in this moment, standing in _their room_  with Carter, half-drunk and half-overjoyed, Ray can’t think of any good reasons why not.

He leans forward, just an inch, just to make his intentions clear. The motion makes him sway, and Carter’s arms settle on his shoulders to steady him: his breath ghosts over Ray’s lips and he can feel the moment tremble between them, fear and expectation and hope and _everything_  else.

Carter frowns, which is not the outcome Ray was looking for - before he can ask what’s wrong, Carter pushes him towards the bed.

“You should lie down. Old Joe’s hooch really doesn’t agree with you.”

Carter’s definitely not wrong there, so Ray lets himself be sat down on the straw mattress his body has learned to accept in time, even though he does miss memory foam here and there. He kicks off his boots and collapses on the bed, and the world keeps spinning, but he can’t shake the feeling of loss, of dissatisfaction that grows in his stomach and makes his smile fall too. He doesn’t know why Carter doesn’t want him back; he thought they were on the same page here, what with the... looks, and the touches, and the shared jokes and the shared _bed_. He doesn’t know what’s wrong, all of a sudden, but he feels like he screwed up by pushing for what he wants, just because he stupidly assumed that Carter wanted the same thing. That Carter wanted _him_. And he doesn’t.

“Move over,” Carter mutters, with a sigh that Ray can’t decipher, but he’s stupidly grateful that Carter doesn’t just walk away, that he’s still okay with sharing a bed with Ray, even though they’ll just be lying next to each other, Ray wondering where the heck did he go wrong.

“You didn’t.”

And Ray really has to stop thinking out loud. He turns his head to Carter, cheek pressed into the pillow that smells like both of them, and watches the man settle onto the mattress, just an inch or two from Ray. Carter’s staring at the ceiling, but Ray studies his profile and doesn’t let Carter’s gaze tempt him to look away, because he feels like if he does, Carter will disappear and Ray will be all alone again.

He swallows that idea like a painful knot in his throat and reaches across the vast two inches of mattress to curl his fingers over Carter’s. It’s a reassurance more than a plea for more, but when Carter squeezes his hand and turns to face him, Ray still feels his heart leap in his chest.

“I can’t,” Carter whispers, like he’s afraid someone will hear them, even though the house is deserted and everyone in town is still busy celebrating. “I want to, but... I’ve never... I don’t know how to do this, with anyone else but _her_.”

“So you never had a crush? On anyone?” Ray wonders, and Carter averts his eyes again. Ray thinks he’s blushing, but in the relative darkness of the room, he can’t tell for sure.

“I have. They just never went anywhere, and... then I usually remembered Chay-Ara and it didn’t matter.”

It’s Ray’s turn to look at the ceiling. It offers no answers, but Carter’s hand remains in his grip and Ray decides to take that as a small mercy, in the face of... not quite a rejection, no. But how can he compete with four thousand years of destiny?

“Don’t,” Carter asks, gently, and Ray turns to him again. He wants to reach across the space between them, take Carter’s face in his hands and tell him that they can do this, together, that they can build a life and be happy even if they grow old and die in the town where life expectancy doesn’t go much higher than fifty.

But that’s not what Carter wants to hear, not what he _needs_ , and so Ray slowly nods at him, agrees with whatever it is Carter’s eyes are silently begging for, even if it’s not what he himself wants. They have time, after all - and maybe Carter can’t forget Kendra only two years after her death, but maybe he will, in three years or four or ten, and maybe he won’t ever forget her but he will learn to make room in his heart for one more person, even if Ray will only need that space for one lifetime.

He closes his eyes and lets his head shift on the pillow until his mouth is nearly brushing Carter’s shoulder. They fall asleep hand in hand, lying on top of the bedcovers and both of them shaken in ways they never expected, especially not from each other.

They’re woken up by loud commotion outside; Rip Hunter and his crew strides into town like they own it, like they haven’t been gone for nearly two years, and Ray’s stomach roils at the thought of going back to the life he once craved, but he doesn’t say that out loud, not even to Carter.

It feels like they’re drifting apart from the second the Waverider materializes before their eyes, and Ray’s choking, but he keeps it under wraps. He doesn’t say much when the crew launches into an explanation of their next plan - for them, it has only been hours, and Ray can’t begrudge them the fact that he needs a moment to get up to speed with the tidal wave that is their crew. He needs a moment, or two, to get used to being a part of _them_ again, but he does, gets through the plan and the fighting and the lasers and _his suit_ with gritted teeth, breathing and taking everything one (quick) step at a time.

At the end of that ploy, Kendra’s alive and well and on board of the time ship, and there are tears in Carter’s eyes and his fated lover in his arms.

If, at night, Ray feels the absence of Carter’s warmth all the way down to his bones, he never tells anyone. There’s not much to say anyway - and so, the story he has been living remains untold and unwritten.

 

 


End file.
